same length of staple might be preserved, and the fiber made finer and less wiry by the soil and climate. Another suggestion which he makes is, that as land in India pays a tax to the Government, it might be advisable, should the business of growing, cotton at Debrooghur be taken up by the Manchester interests, to solicit the Court of Directors to forego any rent of the land for the first ten or twelve years.

AGRICULTURAL AND COMMERCIAL VALUE OF RAILROADS.

The Democracy, a journal recently established at Buffalo by an association of gentlemen, and conducted with a good deal of ability, publishes the following table and remarks illustrating the value of railroads :

Upon the ordinary highways, the economical limit to transportation is confined within a comparatively few miles, depending of course upon the kind of freight and the character of the roads. Upon the average of such ways, the cost of transportation is not far from fifty cents per ton per mile, which may be considered as a sufficently correct estimate for the whole country. Estimating, at the same time, the value of wheat at $1 50 per bushel, and corn at 75 cents, and that 33 bushels of each are equal to a ton, the value of the former would be equal to its cost of transportation 330 miles, and the latter 165 miles. At these respective distances from market, neither of the above articles would have any commercial value, with only a common earth road as an avenue to market. But we find that we can move property upon railroads at the rate of fifteen cents per ton per mile, or for one-tenth the cost upon the ordinary road. These works, therefore, extend the economic limit of the cost of transportation of the above articles to 3,300 and 1,650 miles respectively.

STATEMENT SHOWING THE VALUE OF A TON OF WHEAT, AND ONE OF CORN, AT GIVEN POINTS FROM MARKET, AS AFFECTED BY COST OF TRANSPORTATION BY RAILROAD AND OVER THE ORDINARY ROAD.

How wonderfully does the railroad enhance the value of farming lands at a distance from market! American farms, generally speaking, are very far from market. Indeed, New York is the market for the bulk of the northern agricultural products. Most English farms have a market nearly in sight of them. But ours are for the most part so far away, that railroads of long lines and long connections instantly double, treble, quadruple, and quintuple the worth of grain lands near where they run. This has been the case in Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Canada. The President of the Nashville and Chattanoogo road has stated that the increase in the value of a belt of land ten miles mide, lying upon each side of that line, was equal to $6 50 per acre, or $96,000 for every mile of road, which cost the company only $20,000 a mile. It has been calculated that the construction of the 2,000 miles of railroad in Ohio would add to the value of landed property in that State three hundred millions of dollars-that is, five times the cost of the roads, which was $60,000,000. The country can stand bankruptcies that come through railroad enterprises, if it can stand any. Of all forms, they are the least mischievous.

IS FARMING PROFITABLE ?

We should be glad if the following statement which we find in the Manchester Farmer, was the means of inducing many of our young men to enter into a pursuit far more certain of securing a competency than that of merchandising in our overcrowded cities:

We often hear the affirmative of this denied, and by persons, too, whose opinions were entitled to credit. We do not prefer to discuss this subject, but to give a practical illustration of it, and let our readers make the application.

Deacon Brooks Shattuck, of Bedford, bought and moved upon a farm, eleven years since. It was a rough farm, for which he paid $2,300. He was a manufacturer, and had shattered his health in a mill at Lowell. He paid, in cash $900, leaving a debt to be paid on the farm of $1,400. During that eleven years he has supported a large family, educated his children, having one son in college, has contributed liberally to the charities of the day, has been a liberal supporter and patron of agricultural societies, spending time and money freely, to further these objects-in a word, he has been an active, industrious book-farmer. Now mark the result. He has sold from his farm, $100 worth of land, and $300 worth of wood, timber, &c., standing upon the same, which may not be reckoned as the result of agricultural labor. He has paid the $1,400, and a few weeks since sold his farm for $3,700, giving a balance on his farm of $1,500, for improvements, and the rise in the value of lands. To recapitualate receipts from farm :

for the receipts on the purchase, and carrying on a farm for eleven years, besides the support of a large family. In addition, he has recovered his health, so as to labor daily on his farm.

ASPARAGUS SEED A SUBSTITUTE FOR COFFEE.

Asparagus is waxing potent enough to threaten a usurpation of breakfastdom! Hear what experimental philosophy pronounces on the coming revolution:

Liebig (the illustrious German chemist) says that asparagus contains, in common with tea and coffee, a principle which he calls " taurine," and which he considers essential to the health of those who do not take strong exercise. Taking the hint from Baron Liebig, a writer in the London Gardener's Chronicle, was led to test asparagus as a substitute for coffee. He says: "The young shoots I first prepared were not agreeable, having an alkaline taste. I then tried the ripe seeds; these roasted and ground make a full-flavored coffee, not easily distinguished from fine Mocha. The seeds are easily freed from the berries by drying them in a cool oven, and then rubbing them on a sieve." In good soils asparagus yields seeds abundantly; and if they are charged with "taurine," and identical with the seeds of the coffee plant, asparagus coffee may be grown in the United States at less than half the cost per pound of the article now so largely imported.

THE DIOSCOREA JAPONICA A SUBSTITUTE FOR POTATOES.

GALLIGNANI says: "For the last four years considerable attention has been paid at the Museum of Natural History, in Paris, to the cultivation of a plant coming from China, and known under the name of dioscorea japonica. This plant, says the writer of a paper sent to the Central Agricultural Society, may by its size, weight and hardy character, become exceedingly valuable in France, as it will serve as a substitute for the potato. Its tubercles, like those of the Jerusalem artichoke, resist in the open air the severest winter without sustaining any injury. Several specimens of these roots, of very large size, were presented in 1852 to the society, one of which, of a cylindrical form, was three feet in length; another tubercle, presented in 1853, weighed three pounds, the former having been in the earth 20 months, and the latter 16. The flavor of this vegetable is more delicate than that of the potato."

NAUTICAL INTELLIGENCE.

DISCOVERY OF A SHOAL OFF NEW POINT COMFORT, AND DESCRIPTION OF YORK SPIT, CHESAPEAKE BAY.

T. J. ALMY, of the United States Navy, Assistant in the Coast Survey, represents to A. D. Bache, Superintendent, the discovery of a shoal southeast of New Point Comfort Lighthouse, which he proposes to call “New Point Shoal." The particulars of this discovery, as given in the following extracts from Mr. Almy's letter, will be useful to navigators:

While prosecuting the soundings off to the southward and eastward of New Point Comfort Lighthouse, I discovered a shoal with 18, 17, and 16 feet upon it. This is the only detached shoal, if I may except the "Inner Middle," with which I have met anywhere below Windmill Point, or below the widest part of Chesapeake Bay. This shoal is three-quarters of a mile long and a third of a mile wide, extending in an E. N. E. and W. S. W. direction, and the 16 feet shoal part lies due southeast from New Point Comfort Lighthouse, a distance of four nautical miles from it. There are 5 and 6 fathoms between this shoal and the lighthouse. The best charts have 6 fathoms where this shoal lies.

York Spit is, as you know, one of the greatest dangers to navigators in this part of Chesapeake Bay. It is a narrow spit or bar lying between the entrance into Mobjack Bay and the entrance into York River, varying in width from a quarter to half a mile, and extending out from the land 63 nautical, equal to 74 statute miles, where it commences to deepen beyond 3 fathoms. At a distance of 6 nautical miles from the land there is, as I found, only 14 feet of water.

FIXED LIGHT AT PLUMB POINT, PORT ROYAL, JAMAICA.

The following official notice has been received at this office, and is published in the Merchants' Magazine for the information of mariners. It was signed by Thomas Henderson, Commodore, Geo. J. Gibbon, master of Her Majesty's ship Imaum, and published by order of the Commissioner, and of the Lighthouse Board:—

A light-house has been erected 66 yards north of the south extreme of Plumb Point, on the Palisadoes, immediately opposite the town of Kingston, Jamaica, (West Indies) in lat. 17° 55′ 45′′ North, and long. 76° 47' West of Greenwich. It is 68 fect above the level of the sea, painted white, and will exhibit, on and after the 20th July, a fixed light, red from S. E. by E. ↑ E. to † W., and white S. W. to N. W. It may be seen, in clear weather, 12 miles distant.

Directions. The red light brought anything to the northward of N. W. by W. § W. will clear, to the southward, the low shelving ground of Cow Bay Point, and Lamotte's Bank; and the same light, brought to the westward of N. E., will clear, to the eastward, all the shoal ground lying to the eastward of Maiden and South East Cays.

Vessels working up from the southward for anchorage off Plumb Point, or intending to proceed into harbor, must tack immediately on losing the red light until within half a mile S. W. of the Point, when the white light will open, bearing N. E.; then steer W. by N. N. until it bears E. & S., passing close to the northward of the White Beacon Buoy off the Forth Spit of Gun Cay; then alter course to S. W. by W., and as soon as the light opens of the south extreme of Gun Cay, E. & S., steer W. by N which will lead in between the Beacon and West Middle Shoals, (or take the channel to the northward of the New Shoal, passing close round Port Royal Point,) and as soon as the bright light on Fort Augustus bears N. by E., haul up for it, which will lead clear to the westward of the harbor knowle, and the South and North Pelican Spits, and as soon as Plumb Point Light bears S. E. by E. southerly, haul up § S. for the anchorage of Kingston, when a red light will be seen on Fort Augusta astern, beating W. N. from the anchorage off Kingston.

The white light will show the vicinage of all the cays and shoals lying to the southward and westward of Plumb Point, as well as the northeastern limits of the shoal extending to the eastward of the North Pelican spit westward of Kingston harbor.

Ships coming from the westward, and having brought Portland Point to bear about north, should steer E. N. E., so as to make the white light upon N. E. by N. bearing, continue the same course until the red light opens, bearing N. E., then haul up for it and proceed as before directed.

The bright light will be exhibited from a single lamp, suspended to the beacon on Fort Augusta, 40 feet high, and will only be seen when to the southward and westward of it. It may be used as a guide through the south channel, by keeping it upon a N. by E. bearing, which will lead clear to the westward of the Portuguese buoy, and to the eastward of the Three Fathom Bank; but the use of this channel is not advisable at night except by the "drogers" and other small vessels.

The following are the bearings and distances from Plumb Point light-house; Cow Bay Point, E. S. E. 8 miles; Lamotte's Bank E. S. E. 13 miles; Morant Cay, S. E. by E. 56 miles; East Middle Buoy, S. S. W. W. 1 mile; South East Cay, S. W. † S. 24 miles; Portuguese Buoy, W. S. W. 5 miles; Portland Rock, S. W. 61 miles.

N. B. The whole of the bearings are magnetic, and it is recommended that they be strictly attended to.

STATISTICS OF POPULATION, &c.

POPULATION OF CUBA IN 1853.

The population of Cuba, according to the latest official statements, is given in the subjoined table. The total fixed population of the whole island according to this table was in 1853, 1,900,060.

FOREIGN POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES IN 1850.

By the census of 1850, it appears that of the white population of the United States then amounting to 19,553,058, there were born in foreign countries 2,240,535 persons, viz.: males 1,239,434, females 1,001,101. Those ascertained to have been born in the United States amounted to 17,279,875, and 32,658 were reported unknown as to their nativity. It thus appears that the proportion of natives to foreigners, in 1850, was nearly eight to one in the whole United States. It should be observed that since the census of 1850 was taken, the foreign population has largely increased by immigration, amounting to over one million in all, so that the number of persons of foreign birth now in the United States, may be stated at about three and a half millions. The proportion of Germans among the recent immigrants has been very great, as appears from the following extract from an article in the New York Staats Zeitung, a German paper :

For many years the Irish immigration was much the largest, until suddenly, from 69,883 in 1851, the German immigration increased to 118,126 in 1852, and thus surpassed the Irish. The following figures show the condition of the immigration during the last six years:

German.

German.

1849..

1850.

1851.

Irish. 212,681

66,705 1852.

Irish.

The number of immigrants that arrived here during the month of May, up to the 24th, was 30,590, of which 8,995 were Irish, and 18,560 Germans.

The native countries of the foreign population in United States, in 1850, by the census, were as follows:

PROGRESS OF POPULATION IN DETROIT.

According to the Tribune, published in Detroit, (Michigan,) the increase of popula tion to the present time has been as follows:

This, however, includes only those strictly within the corporate limits, while there is both above and below the present boundaries a space quite equal to either of the city wards built up, and inhabited by people whose entire occupation and interests are in the city, and who should therefore properly be enumerated with it. Adding these to the number stated above, and we have a population of nearly or quite 40,000. The increase for the year 1853 was about 35 per cent, and from the many large enterprises now setting forward, and the extensive preparations for building, we cannot anticipate at the close of the current year a population of less than 50,000 or 55,000. In every direction the city is extending itself beyond its present limits, new streets are being opened, shops, dwellings, and stores, being erected in districts where both convenience, health, and security require the extension of the city laws and police, as well as improvements for drainage, water, paving, &c It is hoped that the charter may be amended at the earliest possible date, to embrace such sections as are thus situated. The value of the property there will be greatly enhanced, and the interests of the city promoted.